Saturday, November 10, 2012

"In this next installment in my ongoing series,"BiovaxID: On the Trail of the Lymphoma Vaccine", I interviewed one of the world's leading authorities on lymphoma, Dr. Eduardo M. Sotomayor.

Dr. Sotomayor serves as Chair of the Department of Malignant Hematology and holds the Susan and John Sykes Endowed Chair in Hematologic Malignancies at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa, Florida."

"Dr. Sotomayor served as one of the principal investigators in the Phase III clinical trial evaluating BiovaxID in the consolidation setting against follicular lymphoma and co-authored the ensuing paper in the Journal of Clinical Oncology1.

We discussed BiovaxID, the response to the vaccine by regulatory agencies in Europe and the US, as well as a similar lymphoma vaccine under development at Moffitt, and the mystery that is mantle cell lymphoma, among other things.

The Interview

Ross Bonander: Were you surprised when the FDA requested a second Phase III trial for BiovaxID?

Sotomayor: Yes. But you have to look at the history of this vaccine. The trial began in 2000. That was really before the widespread use of rituximab. Most of the patients in the trial received PACE chemotherapy. After ritiximab became common practice we had to modify the trial to allow patients to be treated with chemotherapy that included rituximab.

So one of the questions the FDA had was, 'This trial began before rituximab, how can you apply trial results to the current practice?'"

To read the full article and to view the other 3 parts of this series, click here.

“Take a moment to imagine what it would be like to live robustly to the ripe old age of 100 or more. You wouldn’t die of any particular illness, and you wouldn’t gradually waste away under the spell of some awful, enfeebling disease that began years or decades earlier.

It may sound far-fetched, but it is possible to live a long, disease-free life. Most of the conditions that kill us, including cancer and heart disease, could be prevented or delayed by a new way of looking at and treating health. The end of illness is near.

Today, we mostly wait for the body to break before we treat it. When I picture what it will be like for my two children to stay in good health as independent adults in 10 or 20 years, I see a big shift from our current model.”

***

Ladies and gentlemen, we are not there yet. With a shift in focus as the author alludes to, perhaps the end is somewhere on the horizon.

The book does provide some familiar yet vital information with respect to preventative medicine and measures one can take to help fend off the plethora of illnesses that can result in distress to human homeostasis. As well, he includes a healthy dose of unique insight. I still think the truth is yet to be told on many of the ideas presented, but others are indisputable in their benefits.

In terms of ending illness, the author merely describes how the future of medicine may look in the decades ahead. He likens genomics to a recipe; with proteomics (the study of proteins and one of the focuses of his company Applied Proteomics) being what comes out of the kitchen. Proteomics, then, lets one know what’s happening in the body at any given time. It’s already happening, but proteomics has to continue to evolve.

The future of medicine does indeed look brilliant.

***

“Any man who is intelligent must, on considering that health is of the utmost value to human beings, have the personal understanding necessary to help himself in diseases, and be able to understand and to judge what physicians say and what they administer to his body, being versed in each of these matters to a degree reasonable for a layman.”

- Hippocrates

***

Youtopiawill be a regular column at Terre Magnum with hopes of being a catalyst for readers to take the necessary steps en route to preventing illness and perhaps even the eventual end of all maladies.

Stay connected (Twitter @KryzRolf)and check back often as Youtopia explores many of the concepts raised byThe End of Illness and beyond in the world of health.

This indispensable book is not only a manifesto—a call for revising the way we think about health—it’s also filled with practical but impossible-to-ignore suggestions, including:

• How taking multivitamins and supplements could significantly increase our risk for cancer over time.

• Why sitting down most of the day, despite a strenuous morning workout, can be as bad as or worse than smoking.

• How sneaky sources of daily inflammation—from high heels to the common cold—can lead to a fatal heart attack, and even rob us of our sanity.

• How three inexpensive medications—aspirin, statins, and an annual flu vaccine—can substantially change the course of our health for the better.

• How taking shortcuts to health via blending fruits and vegetables, and sometimes even by purchasing what we think is “fresh,” could be shortchanging our health.

• The single most important thing we can do today to preserve our health and happiness that costs absolutely nothing.

Dr. Agus also offers insights and access to breathtaking and powerful new technologies that promise to transform medicine in our generation. In the course of offering recommendations, he emphasizes his belief that there is no “right” answer, no master guide that is “one size fits all.” Each one of us must get to know our bodies in uniquely personal ways, and he shows us exactly how to do that so that we can individually create a plan for wellness.

Video:

David Agus Bio:

Dr. Agus is professor of medicine and engineering at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and the Viterbi School of Engineering and heads USC’s Westside Cancer Center and the Center for Applied Molecular Medicine. He received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton and his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He trained at Johns Hopkins and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. A staunch advocate for personalized medicine, he chairs the Global Agenda Council on Genetics for the World Economic Forum, and is co-founder of Applied Proteomics and Navigenics, two health-care technology and wellness companies.

Journal of Clinical Oncology Current Issue

The Lancet Oncology

European Journal of Cancer - Articles in Press

Journal of Oncology Pharmacy Practice current issue

About Onco-PRN

Welcome and thanks for visiting Onco-P.R.N. - The oncology website with a focus on all things oncology pharmacy/pain/palliative care-related. It is intended to be an information resource for those pharmacist and relevant health care professionals involved in whatever fashion with cancer and palliative care. Stay tuned for the latest and greatest links and information with respect to: oncology medications, continuing education, pharmaceutical care initiatives, pain and symptom control, supportive care topics, and whatever else that might fit into the theme.

*Note: This website is not affiliated with Alberta Health Services (AHS) or CAPhO and the opinions expressed herewithin are that of the author(s).

Pharmacy History

"The earliest known compilation of medicinal substances was ARIANA the Sushruta Samhita, an Indian Ayurvedic treatise attributed to Sushruta in the 6th century BC. However, the earliest text as preserved dates to the 3rd or 4th century AD.Many Sumerian (late 6th millennium BC - early 2nd millennium BC) cuneiform clay tablets record prescriptions for medicine.[3]

Ancient Egyptian pharmacological knowledge was recorded in various papyri such as the Ebers Papyrus of 1550 BC, and the Edwin Smith Papyrus of the 16th century BC.

The earliest known Chinese manual on materia medica is the Shennong Bencao Jing (The Divine Farmer's Herb-Root Classic), dating back to the 1st century AD. It was compiled during the Han dynasty and was attributed to the mythical Shennong. Earlier literature included lists of prescriptions for specific ailments, exemplified by a manuscript "Recipes for 52 Ailments", found in the Mawangdui tomb, sealed in 168 BC. Further details on Chinese pharmacy can be found in the Pharmacy in China article."

Journal of Palliative Medicine - Table of Contents

Traditional Romanian Pharmacy

The Sibiu Pharmacy Museum in Sibiu, Transylvania, Romania, is housed in a 1569 Gothic townhouse where the oldest pharmacy in Romania operated for over 150 years. The pharmacy was known as La Ursul Negru (The Black Bear).

Sir William Osler: "It is much more important to know what sort of a person has a disease than what sort of disease a patient has."

William Osler is regarded as McGill’s most eminent medical graduate and, as Professor of the Institutes of Medicine, the most eminent member of the McGill Medical Faculty. At the time of his death (1919), he was without question the best known and best loved physician in the English-speaking world.